Chapter Text
The woman with the chipped nail polish sat next to the bar. Her flogger - red and white, as far as Quentin could tell in the color-changing lights - hung from her belt, its strands ending just short of the floor.
Quentin spotted her earlier, when she was scening with some guy he vaguely knew. Maybe she was done for the evening.
He'd never know unless he tried, right?
He walked up beside her. Said, "Hi," skirting the line of being heard over the music without yelling in her ear. "May I buy you a drink?"
She looked him over. Quentin felt himself blushing. She shook her head and got up. Before Quentin could find a quiet corner to bury himself in, however, she turned and beckoned at him to follow her.
Outside, it was cold and cigarette smoke stung Quentin's eyes. It was, however, a good deal quieter. Under the streetlights, her nail polish looked green. "What are you looking for?" she asked him.
He swallowed. Rehearsed in his head that if she was one of those who expected him to play a role right off the bat, unnegotiated, she wasn't right for him. The words came to him in Alyssa's voice, and they calmed him down a little. "I'm into impact," Quentin gestures at her flogger. "Kneeling, kissing your feet." The next part was harder, less generic. The things he truly yearned for when he went out. "If you wanted to write or draw on me, I'd like that. Anything you want so long as the ink comes off. Or say things, and have me repeat them, anything you want for that as well."
A moment of silence stretched on. Quentin didn't fidget and thought, over and over, It's okay to want. It's okay to ask. It's okay if she says no. He was used to bewilderment, when he asked for the things he wanted. A few laughed at his face. Some assumed it was a humiliation thing, which Quentin rolled along with, even if it wasn't his first choice.
What the woman said was, "Are you trying to get me to call down power through you?"
Quentin's eyes widened, feeling the words like a shock down his spine. That was what Sabine had called what they did, Calling down power. Just hearing the words from someone else's mouth felt like a tantalizing promise. "Yeah. I-- yeah."
"In a kink club? Really?" she said, incredulous. "How much power did you have in mind?"
When Sabine asked him that, the correct answer would be, As much as you want. But Quentin had had a few years of therapy since then, not to mention Alyssa's influence. "I'm not sure how to measure it. Sorry," he said, when her expression shifted. She looked mildly horrified. "My ex said -- shit, sorry." Wow, bringing up the ex, go him.
"Finish the sentence."
"She said I could take a lot." He winced. "I don't know if that's any help at all - anything that works for you, I'm probably fine with."
"Oh my God." She rubbed her forehead. "How long have you known you're a familiar?"
Quentin blinked. "A what?" Then a memory came to him, some girl Alyssa had met that said she was-- "Some kind of magic thing? Are those real?"
The woman actually facepalmed. "I'm guessing you have no idea how to draw power safely."
"I have a safeword," he offered, after a moment's confusion.
"Great. Just great. Look. As one, as one person to another, do me a favor. Promise me you won't try to draw power - no chanting, no writing on skin - until you know how to do it safely. Okay? Otherwise you could get hurt, your partner could get hurt, the fabric of reality could get hurt. Just-- not until you know what not to do."
Quentin hesitated. He wanted to say yes, wanted to make her happy; it was the same urge that made him want her to hit him with that flogger. At the same time....
He didn't go out often, and when he did, he didn't often find people willing to engage in the kinds of play she asked him to give up. But when he did, when he did-- even when all it did was stir memories of his time with Sabine--
Well, there was a reason he'd stayed with her for as long as he did, despite everything.
"I'm not saying give it up forever," the woman said, exasperated. "Just until you've picked up the basics. Enough to be able to tell a partner how much power you want to draw, for one thing. Okay, open your phone and give it to me." She held out her hand. Once Quentin did as she asked, she typed in something. "That's the email of... you know munches?"
Quentin glanced at the club behind them and sald, "What do you think?"
She snorted. "I think some of the bozos here have no idea what those are. Anyway, I'm giving you the email of the... think of them as munch organizers. For members of the magical community. The next one is just next week. Show up, and if nobody else is there to give you the 101 lecture, I promise I will." She handed him the phone, and said, "My name is Gail."
"Quentin."
She nodded. "Nice to meet you, Quentin. See you at the mixer." She didn't add or else, but Quentin had a feeling he heard it nonetheless.
When he got home, Alyssa was sitting at the kitchen table, sorting her meds into her pill box.
He kissed her on the cheek. "Hey, babe. How's Michelle?"
"Distracted. Finals and grading and workshops, oh my! I'm lucky she could clear a couple of hours for me."
"Well, she's lucky to have you for a couple of hours, even if it's all she can have," Quentin said. He stood behind Alyssa and she leaned her head back on his stomach.
"She said the same thing. How do you manage to rub off on each other when you barely ever meet?"
"I don't know, it's like there's this person we both love who keeps telling us sweet affirming things. It's a mystery." Quentin gave her shoulders a cursory rub. "I'm going to bed. Should I wait up?"
Five minutes later they were both in bed, pajama-clad, cuddling. "So how was your evening?" Alyssa said.
Quentin groaned. "So I tried to hit on this domme, and she takes me outside and tells me I'm a familiar."
He could feel Alyssa blinking against his cheek. "Seriously?" She shuffled. "What does that even mean? How could she tell?"
"Beats me. She gave me an email and told me to come to," not a munch, she'd called it something else, "a mixer. I'll know more next week."
"Wow." For a moment, Alyssa went quiet. "Hey, Quen? You know I love you either way, right?"
"I know." Still felt good to hear it. "Love you too, Lyssa."
They kiss, close-mouthed, and settle each in their respective side of the bed.
The mixer took place in a more upscale restaurant than most munches Quentin has been to, and the entire back room was reserved for them. It took him a moment to realize that yes, everyone in the room was here for the same event: there were people wearing business casual sitting next to tattooed, pierced folks in ripped jeans, at least one lady in mom jeans -- or was that rude to say? In jeans, anyway, and a t-shirt, and a guy with a sweater vest.
There was a free chair next to the last one, and Quentin sat down, hunching his shoulders. He looked furtively up and down the table, but couldn't see Gail.
The people around him seemed comfortable, for the most part, exchanging small talk that went over Quentin's head.
Or possibly gossip would be the better word.
"...She attempted to use his cousin as a source, if you can believe that," said a business-casual clad man.
The mohawked, lip-pierced person next to him, who wore a button that indicated they/them pronouns, drew a hissing breath through their teeth. "I take it he wasn't happy about that."
"Not at all. Got her banned from every East Coast mixer and community that listens to him, and you know, most of them do."
"Just for dating his cousin?" That was the lady in jeans. "That sounds excessive."
"If you knew what happened to the other people she'd dated..."
The sweater vest wearer seemed uncomfortable. Before he could say anything, however, there was a throat-clearing sound, and the tinkle of a spoon against a glass. The people next to Quentin fell silent.
"Magic users and familiars, welcome to the third mixer of the year!" The speaker is a petite woman with long, dark hair. "We'll soon do a round of introductions. Then we'll begin the activities. First, a few rules:
"No means no. If somebody isn't interested in pursuing a scenario with you, even if they showed interest in general, then you drop it with no further commentary." The speaker took a sip from a water glass. "I hear we have some new familiars in the audience?"
Quentin ducked his head. He felt eyes on him and did not like that one bit.
"Anybody new to the mixer has to find a member with an armband," the speaker indicated a red ribbon around her arm, "to sponsor them for the evening. Don't be shy, folks, it's what we're here for."
Around that point, as Quentin considered hyperventilating or possibly getting up and leaving, he finally spotted Gail. She was sitting near the head of the table. She waved at Quentin with a vaguely menacing air when their eyes met.
The speaker added some notes on privacy which Quentin already knew from the kink scene - use the names people use when they introduce themselves, don't mention names if you talk about the mixer - and concludes with, "Members with armbands will also have markers, ribbons, graph paper, and other equipment you might need. Don't hesitate to ask!"
Graph paper? Really? Quentin shook his head. Apparently there was plenty he didn't know. Big surprise there.
"Good to see you here," Gail said, shoving a chair in the corner next to Quentin. Her red armband seemed like something he ought to expect at this point. "I'll explain the general flow after the introduction round."
Said round involved saying one's name, pronouns, and favorite animal. The second person asked, a man with cotton candy-pink hair, chose unicorns. For a wild second Quentin wondered if those were real, too. Maybe he should say dragons when it's his turn. What if unicorns were real, though, and dragons weren't, and everyone thought he was a dumbass?
By the time Quentin's turn arrived, he barely remembered to choke out, "Quentin, he/him."
Gail prods him. "Animal?"
"Hexagon," Quentin said, because for some reason his mouth decided that was an appropriate thing to say. There wasn't much of a comment from the room; Quentin tried to tell himself not everyone was staring at him and wondering what planet he fell from.
"Henry," said the man in the sweater vest a moment later. "He/him. No favorite animal, but my favorite geometrical body is a scalene triangle." The introductions continued, and Quentin breathed, grateful.
The speaker was the last person to introduce herself: "Shireen, she/her, pidgeon." She brought out a metal savings tin with "keep it silver" written on it, and a stack of yellow notes. "All right! Now we're going to partake in the time-honored tradition of the koala box. Everyone writes a scenario they're interested in and put it in the tin. I then draw out one scenario at a time, calling for either magic-user or familiar volunteers. Anybody who's interested can raise their hand, and I choose one. Then I'll call out for the other side - familiar if I called user, user if I called familiar - and anyone interested in participating with the first person I chose raises their hands, and the first person I chose chooses who to work with. Everyone got it?"
There were nods and murmurs. Quentin glanced nervously at Gail, who gave him a thumbs up.
Quentin spent a few minutes with a mind utterly blank of ideas, but when the yellow note was passed down to him, he found himself writing, "make someone tell the truth and ask them personal questions".
His memories of doing that with Sabine weren't exactly positive: she mostly used it when she thought he might be cheating on her, and often they came out with her forbidding him from meeting someone, or visiting someplace. But it was a concrete scenario that Quentin thought might be okay to do in this setting.
The tin was passed around, and Quentin threw his folded note in after everybody else. Shireen shook the tin, opened it and took out a note. "Pain relief," she read out. "Magic users?"
The lip-pierced person, Sage, put up their hand. "You want to practice it on the familiar?" Shireen asked Sage, who nodded. When Shireen called for a familiar, five hands snapped up, most of them from the section of the room with colorful hair. The lady in jeans also had her hand up, and was biting her lip.
"Rowan," Sage said, and the cotton-candy haired guy stood up, which let Quentin notice he was using a crutch.
Sage and Rowan both came to stand in the center of the room. Sage had a quick, quiet discussion with Shireen, and came away bearing a lighter and a small red birthday candle, which they had Rowan hold.
"Do you want to sit down for the spell-laying?" Sage asked Rowan, who shook his head. "Alright. Repeat after me," Sage said. "We call to the Powers...."
Quentin had to blink a few times to clear his eyes. He remembered that litany. Sage's voice was nothing like Sabine's, but the words rang so familiar that he could swear he heard Sabine talking.
But as Sage went on, the litany changed from what Quentin remembered. "As long as the candle burns," that part was familiar, although Sabine used larger candles, "and as long as I hold it, the spell will hold. If I let go," had Quentin holding his breath; that part usually involved some sort of punishment.
But all Sage said was, "The spell will end, and all will be as before." Rowan repeated after them.
Sage lit the candle. As the flame caught, Rowan let out a groan of relief; he still stood straight. His face, which Quentin hadn't marked before, looked luminous, blissed into beauty.
"How does it feel?" Sage asked.
Rowan shuddered. "Really fucking good."
"You wanna sit down until the spell runs out?"
Rowan nodded. Sage led him back to his seat. There was a smattering of polite applause.
The man in business casual in front of Quentin huffed. "No sense of showmanship."
Henry gave him a sharp look, but before he could speak, Shireen pulled out another note. "Levitation! Ah, a classic. Familiars, raise your hands if you're interested!"
A young woman in a white button-down raised her hand. Business casual dude raised his hand when Shireen asked for magic users, which didn't surprise Quentin. Henry did, too, which Quentin had not expected. The woman chose Henry.
Henry and the woman briefly conferred. The woman rolled up her sleeves, and Henry took a marker out of his bag. He spoke to himself quietly for a few moments, then began to draw on her. When he said his litany, he did so with precise enunciation, repeating sections when the woman's diction wasn't to his liking. The business casual dude scowled. Henry drew complex geometrical shapes on the woman's exposed forearms, compressing sure strokes of the marker into the available space.
He capped the marker, put it aside, picked up his hands, and she flew.
Quentin's idea of levitation was "a few inches in the air". That's not what was happening here. Henry moved his hands in graceful arcs, and the familiar moved in the air just the same, grinning hugely and whooping.
The whole thing lasted less than a minute before Henry landed her on her feet, a soft landing. The applause this time was thunderous; even business casual dude clapped, resentfully. Henry smiled at the familiar, they exchanged a couple of quiet words, and went each to their seat.
The activities went on. Jeans lady - whose name was Karen - was both a familiar and a magic user, so she could channel her own magic to make colorful water bubbles float and dance in the air. A woman in glasses with her hair in a bun channeled a red-haired guy's power to create an illusion of a palm-sized dragon, see-through but moving with startling realism.
"Two more," Shireen said, and read off the note: "Truth spell! I'm cheating and picking myself as magic user, since I haven't had a go yet. Any familiars interested?"
Nobody was looking at Quentin. He knew that. Lots of people hadn't put their hands up at any point. That wasn't why he raised his hand, hesitantly, then more firmly when Gail gave him an encouraging smile.
He shuffled to the center of the room. "I primarily draw my wards with ribbons," Shireen told him, "but I can do them in marker if you prefer. And I'd have to touch your hand, is that okay?"
"That's fine. Both of what you said." Quentin had no idea what she wanted to do with the ribbons, but he figured it couldn't be too bad.
What she did, it transpired, was a cross between bondage and weaving, tying the ribbons in a complicated pattern around Quentin's chest. The ties were loose enough, and the ribbons light enough, that Quentin barely felt anything through his shirt. If she'd done it on bare skin--
He shut the thought down. This wasn't the time or place.
"Now, repeat," Shireen said. "I call down the power...."
"I call down the power."
"To speak truth, and only truth." He repeated after her. "And know truth from lies. As long as your hand touches mine, I will speak the entire truth, as I know it." She laid her hand over his. "If I draw my hand away, the spell will end, and all will be as it was before."
Again with the lack of the punishment clause. Quentin was getting to wonder about that. Maybe Sabine had added those because he'd been her submissive.
Quentin couldn't quite pursue that line of thought. Before he could try, the spell took charge. His limbs felt heavy, but he wasn't tired: he felt full of energy, coiled and waiting to be used.
"Are you ready?" Shireen asked.
It was funny, being told that he was the one channeling the power, when it was Shireen shining so strongly he could hardly look at her, and couldn't bear to look away. "Yes."
"All right. I will ask you some personal questions, some of a sexual nature. Are you prepared?"
"Yes."
"Okay. When's the last time you had sex?"
"Five years." The answer came out without his needing to give it any thought. He remembered that: the spell got the answers out of him even if he didn't consciously know them. The answer made sense. Five years ago, he'd just moved in with Alyssa, and they had tried the sex thing for a while before concluding it wasn't for them.
Shireen whistled. "You must miss it a lot."
"Not really." He never did. Not the way he'd missed the whistle of a whip hitting his back, or wrapping his hands around someone he loved.
"Ever cheated on anyone?"
"No." When would he have had the time? Sabine never let him out of her sight and Alyssa and he weren't exclusive in any way.
"Ever fantasized about a guy?"
"Sure."
Shireen's mouth purses in concentration. "What are you ashamed of?"
"Staying with my ex for as long as I did." He followed it with, "I know I shouldn't be. But I am."
"What did your ex--"
Gail stood up. "Is this really necessary? This is a demo, not a therapy session. Don't ask the guy anything he'd regret telling you later."
"He could just take his hand away, it's not like I'm putting him in an altered state," Shireen said, but she also didn't continue that line of questioning. Instead she asked, "What are you afraid of?"
"Rejection. Failure." Quentin smiled. "The usuals. Also anything venomous."
Shireen nodded. "I'll draw my hand away, now, and the spell will end. Ready?"
When she did, Quentin still felt the heaviness. Gail looked at him oddly as he sat down next to her. "You're still carrying nearly all the charge you channeled," she told him, once the polite applause died down. "Didn't you want to resist answering any of the questions she asked?"
Quentin shrugged. "She didn't ask much I minded talking about."
"Last activity!" Shireen called out. "And we have... making hair and clothes float, nice. Familiars, who's interested?" She picked a gangling guy in a metal band t-shirt with long wavy hair. "Magic users?"
The business-casual dude ended up being the magic user for that activity, though he didn't look very pleased about it. He went through drawing the wards (with marker, on the familiar's back, the familiar having raised his shirt to give access) and spoken repetitions quicker than anyone Quentin has seen today. Next to Quentin, Henry winced.
Finally, business casual dude went through the "as long as the candle burns" part, and the familiar's hair floated up in the air around him. The familiar's clothes also rose. The familiar looked like he was suspended in a pool of liquid.
Then the air around him started turning murky.
The familiar frowned. He opened his mouth to speak, but only bubbles came out. He waved his arms, movements deceptively languid and slow, but the panic in his expression showed urgency.
Shireen looked nervously from business casual dude to the candle, which was stuck to a nearby plate with a blob of wax, but it was Gail who got up and snuffed the candle flame between thumb and forefinger.
The familiar dropped to the floor with a thud, panting. "Holy shit," he said, when he got his breath back. "Holy shit."
Business casual dude looked defensive. "You were mumbling during the incantation! I can't be held responsible for that."
Shireen ignored him and rushed to the familiar. "Are you all right? Do you need medical attention?"
The familiar coughed and waved her off. "I'm fine. Never channeling for him again," he said, jerking his head at business casual dude, "but fine."
"Magic has risks!" yelled business casual guy.
"Whatever, dude." The familiar turned and left the room. After a few minutes, so did business casual guy, looking furious; a tattooed person with a red armband followed him out.
"...and then Gail gave me the magic version of The Talk, and also I have a date."
"A date!" Alyssa straightened, knocking stray essays to the floor. "A date, he says, after leading with half an hour of magic party tricks." She was sitting on the sofa, cross-legged, the essays she was grading in her lap and in a pile next to her.
"Excuse me for thinking the supernatural is slightly more interesting than my love life."
Alyssa twirled her pen. "You know what I want to know? If magic is real, why do people who mess with it act like it's a kink instead of, I don't know, trying to transmute lead into gold or achieve immortality?"
"Um." Quentin glanced away, discomfited. "I don't know how to explain it."
She didn't push, but waited for him to put his thoughts in order.
"It's -- personal. No, that's not the word. Intimate. Feeling someone's power run through you, seeing them when they're using that power. It's, I'm not sure how to describe it. But it's not like a business transaction."
"Or like co-authoring an article," Alyssa said.
Quentin ducked his head. "You'd know better than me. Even when it's just a friendly thing with someone I just met -- it's a connection." One he hadn't realized how much he'd missed, until tonight. It made him want to curl up on himself, be shielded.
"Hey. Quen. Look at me?"
Quentin raised his eyes to meet Alyssa's.
Her gaze was warm enough to chase off the chill in his chest. "Is that a kind of intimacy you want to have?" Quentin nodded, jerkily. "Well, that's wonderful. I'm glad you found somewhere where you can pursue that." A wrinkle appeared in Alyssa's forehead. "What about safety, though? What did Gail say?"
Quentin concentrated. "Not that much. To repeat the, uh, chanting, without mumbling or slurring. To make sure there's an effective exit clause that can be used quickly -- snuffing a candle or breaking a seal or untying a rope, those sorts of things. If I'm messing with levitation, only do it with someone I trust." That one, he'd pieced together himself. "When asked how much I want to channel, I can give an example of the kind of working I'm interested in, just to give the magic user an idea of the order of magnitude. How much energy a working takes is really individual anyway, so it's a pretty broad ballpark."
"I'd say, have an escape clause that the person being worked on can use," Alyssa said. "Like holding a candle, rather than the candle being far away where you can't reach it."
Quentin grinned. Alyssa was so clever. "Good thinking."
She moved the papers from her lap to a pile on the floor, and pointed firmly on the pillow next to her. Quentin sat down and leaned his head on her shoulder. He took comfort in her size, her solidity. In a voice that brooked no argument, Alyssa said, "Now tell me about your date."
He shrugged with the shoulder that wasn't pressed to Alyssa's chest. "Not much to tell. Next week, her name's Delilah. She made the dragon illusion I was talking about earlier." The appraising look that Delilah had given him had felt familiar. Easy to work with.
Driving to Delilah's place, Quentin wondered whether he'd misrepresented the meeting to Alyssa by calling it a date.
At the end of the mixer, people had stood up and talked about workings they wanted to do, and said whether they wanted to be approached about to the working, and by whom. Delilah had said "Any male familiar," after her project pitch. Was the insistence on men a hint that she wanted types of intimacy beside magic?
That sort of thing, the emphasis on the gender of the people you were intimate with, had never made sense to Quentin. But maybe that wasn't why. Maybe gender mattered in magic in some way that nobody had gotten around to explaining to him.
He arrived at Delilah's apartment feeling simultaneously over- and underdressed. He nervously smoothed a hand over his button-down. It was light blue, which he'd been told suited his complexion. He wore gray suit pants and no jacket: work clothes. It seemed to match up with Delilah's outfit from the mixer.
Delilah opened the door clad in a blouse, pencil skirt and a pair of kitten heels, so Quentin's worries about his own getup were somewhat assuaged. In addition, she looked great, and Quentin told her so after the initial greetings.
"Thank you." She smiled and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, her earrings jangling. "Do you want anything to drink? A snack? Come in, sit down." She gestured at the couch.
"I'm fine, thanks." He sat. Her place was a loft apartment, spacious, with beautiful light coming in through the large windows. There were sculptures and vases standing around, large prints and tapestries and what looked like musical instruments hanging on the walls.
She sat down across from him. "With someone I'm still getting to know, I usually do my wards in marker. Are you comfortable with taking off your shirt?"
Quentin didn't exactly have ripped abs, but he didn't feel like he had anything to hide, either. "Sure, that's fine."
"Have you done any musical workings before, or artistic in general?"
"I don't think so?" In most cases, he was never certain what Sabine was doing. It didn't help that she hadn't told him she was doing magic. "Not that I recall."
"Well, they're fairly straightforward. In our case, I'll lay down the instruments and attempt to extract a dream melody." She waited for a second. "Do you know what that is?"
Quentin shook his head.
"What I’m trying to do is to access my own subconscious and take out a tune I heard in a dream. The instruments," she pointed to the the ones on the wall, "will play, and I will do some tweaking and write down the important parts so I can reconstruct all of it later."
"Cool," Quentin said. The word seemed silly and insufficient, but Delilah already moved on, taking the instruments off the wall and laying them down on the carpet. The one closest to Quentin looked like a flying saucer.
She pointed to a circle marked on the floor in tape, just broad enough for Quentin to stand in. "You come here, and if you need to end the spell, step out of the circle. You can put your shirt on the couch."
Quentin stood in the circle, exposed. The room was warm enough but he still had goosebumps, half queasy with anticipation and apprehension. What are you so worried about? he thought, mentally shaking himself. Isn't this what you wanted?
Delilah uncapped her marker. Not of his own volition, Quentin shivered.
She was quick with the marker, small, sure passes of it engraving themselves in Quentin's skin. He looked down, mesmerized by the curling lines she created. They didn't add up to anything he recognized, neither words nor drawings. "What does it say?" he asked, and cringed as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Way to ruin the mood, Quentin.
Delilah didn't seem upset, though, and she answered while still drawing on him. "Ward language. There's actually a couple of them, like the one that uses knots instead of writing. People say it's super ancient and stuff, but I know for a fact some of the wards are less than five years old." She shrugged without disrupting the line she was tracing. "It's like musical notation. You could use English if you had to, but that would take up more space and make less sense. If you like, I can teach you a few sigils when we're done."
"Oh wow, that sounds great," Quentin said. "Thanks for offering."
"No problem. Now give me a few seconds, I need to concentrate." The lines she drew now curled into one another like a maze, an intricate pattern right over his solar plexus, spiraling inwards. Then she scattered dots in places that seemed random, and capped her pen again. "Right. Time for chanting."
"Hey, can I ask another question?"
She gave a go ahead gesture.
"Um. Are you going to introduce a punishment clause? Like, a bad outcome if I stop the spell? Because...." he trailed off as her eyes widened.
"Of course not! Why would you think that?"
'Right," Quentin said, feeling stupid. "We don't have that kind of relationship, I shouldn't have presumed."
She blinked. "Do you want a punishment clause?"
"No. Wouldn't be much of a punishment if I did, would it?"
A moment passed in silence as she stared at him. Finally, she said, "Either you're into stuff I'm really not into -- not judging -- or you did this with somebody seriously messed up." She paused. "Which I would judge. Hard."
Seriously messed up is a descriptor that had been applied to his relationship with Sabine before. "Right. Sorry."
She patted his shoulder. "It's fine. Anyway, no punishment clause. That okay with you?" He nodded. "Great. Let's chant." She waited a moment, as if to give him time to ask yet more ignorant questions. "I call down the power..."
Any further questions he might have had were drowned out by the familiar exchange of the chanting. As he repeated the words, it felt like an opening created inside him, letting in something wild and strong.
In the grouping of instruments in front of him, a stringed instrument hummed. The thing that looked like a flying saucer let out a sound much sweeter than Quentin would have expected. A flute whistled softly. It all seemed to be gearing into an unholy cacophony, and Quentin was beginning to worry his own lack of musical skill was fucking up the spell when the instruments began to play in harmony.
He'd never heard the tune before, of that he was sure. He would have remembered it. It felt like the power inside him, complicated and unknowable and beautiful.
For long minutes, there was nothing but music. Then the instruments wound down. Quentin sighed at the silence that ensued.
"Hm," Delilah said. "Almost. Let's try that in B flat at the last transition."
Quentin couldn't quite pick out the change. The tune sounded a bit odder as a whole, maybe? He wasn't sure. It was still lovely.
Delilah made tweaks to several of the tune's segments, then played the whole thing from the top with the added changes. "Hey, uh, Quentin, how are you doing?"
"Fine."
Her eyes narrowed. "Actually fine, or don't-want-to-inconvenience-me fine?"
"Actually fine," Quentin said, baffled. "It's very pretty," he added, gesturing at the instruments.
Delilah's expression softened. "I'm so glad it turned out worth extracting. Dream melodies can wind up being an entire song you ripped off, or a bunch of badly mashed up songs, or just a series of chords that makes no sense. I had a good feeling about this one, though, and turns out it's totally justified." She did a little twirl. Quentin grinned at her. "All right then. Again, from the top."
By the time Delilah was satisfied with the melody, Quentin had lost count of how many times the instruments started and stopped. His legs were getting tired, although he wasn't getting the wobbly, turned inside-out feeling he'd gotten sometimes with Sabine. He guessed that's what Gail had meant by burnout.
Delilah held his hand and took him out of the tape circle, oddly careful with him. She led him to the couch. Quentin had a hard time looking away from her; he still felt the connection of the working they did together. She sat down on the couch as well, with some space between them. "How are you feeling?"
"Good." Quentin flexed his fingers, letting his body get used to the empty feeling that he supposed came from no longer channeling. He felt cold. He hoped she didn't want him to leave yet.
What Delilah said, in actuality, was, "Want to make out?"
"Yes," Quentin said, a bit too fast, and moved closer to her. Her warmth was fantastic, and her mouth was soft, and she'd just done something amazing.
No. They had just done something amazing, together.
She asked permission before touching his bare chest, and his stomach, which was weird but endearing. Then she asked to take off Quentin's pants, and the automatic agreement he'd intended to express stuck in his mouth.
"Okay," she said, when it took him more than a second to respond. "Pants stay on, got it. Want to go to bed, just to cuddle?"
Quentin did. But, he realized, not with her. He wanted to be home suddenly, so much his eyes prickled. Wanted Alyssa. "Um." He felt like a total dick saying it, but, "I think I really need to go now. You're great!" He hastened to add. "Just."
"I get it." Delilah helped him stand up and handed him his shirt. "You'll be okay getting home?" she caught his gaze so he couldn't avoid considering the question.
"I'll be fine." Even if he wasn't, he needed to go.
At home, Alyssa was in bed, with the lights turned off, but her breathing was all wrong for sleep. Quentin sat down on the bed next to her and lay a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Did you eat anything today?" It didn't look like she'd gone out of bed since this morning when he left for work.
Alyssa shifted, a lump beneath the blankets. "I ate yesterday," she said, plaintive. "Why do I have to do that again already?"
Quentin bent and kissed her forehead. "Downsides of being a corporeal organism. Are you up for sandwiches?"
She nodded, and Quentin went to the kitchen. He had soup in the fridge, but that wasn't a good choice for eating in bed. He made them both PB&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and cut up an apple and a banana into slices beside it.
Alyssa was sitting up by the time he came back, which was a good sign. She ate her sandwich and most of the banana; Quentin polished off the apple himself when she didn't touch it. She drank the glass of milk he brought her and downed her evening meds, which were on the bedside table.
"Do you want me to brush your hair?" Quentin asked, once they'd done eating and put the dishes aside. Alyssa shook her head and opened her arms to him. Quentin went to her with gratitude, sliding under the covers to be close.
She stroked his hair. "How was your date?"
"Interesting."
Alyssa snorted. "Like, may you live in interesting times interesting?"
He rolled his eyes and told her what transpired. "And then I ran back here like a total weirdo," he concluded.
Alyssa kept stroking him. It was making him drowsy. "Do you think you'll want to see her again?" Without thinking or intending to, Quentin's arms tightened around Alyssa. "Is that a no?"
"I don't know," Quentin said, frustrated. "She was great. I don't see any reason why I wouldn't want to see her again. If she'd even have me."
"Well, you're wonderful, so either she'll have you or she's missing out," Alyssa said, as though that was obvious to any thinking person. "You don't need a reason beyond not wanting to, Quen. That's enough."
Sudden fear seized him. "Do you think Sabine, like, broke me? So I can't want someone even if they're perfect?" Halting, he added, "Are you sure you're okay dealing with my emotional drama right now?"
"I'm too tired to move but I can do emotional processing fine, and I want to. Now let me think." For a long moment, she was quiet. "Sabine has done a lot of things to you, and that might include souring you on certain types of relationships. That sucks, and isn't your fault. It doesn't make you any less wonderful, though. And it doesn't mean you should push yourself into a connection you don't want, even if you're not sure why." Another pause. "I can hazard a guess, though, if you want."
Quentin clung to her without a trace of shame. "Yes, please."
"It seems like you didn't want things to become sexual with her."
That was frustrating, too. "She's really attractive," Quentin said.
"But you're not attracted. Are you?"
Slowly, he shook his head.
"Well, you get not to be. For any reason. Or you might feel differently once you get to know her better."
Quentin had been down this path before. "And I might not. I don't want to leave her hanging while I try to figure out what I want."
Alyssa dropped a kiss in his hair. "I want to point out that you're new to this world, and it's natural you'll need to take a while to figure out where you fit in it and what you want from the relationships you find there."
Quentin groaned. "You are so damn smart." He kept the and I'm an idiot part to himself.
"I just listen. That's all."
"It's a lot," Quentin said, with emphasis. He yawned. "I think I want to sleep. Think you'll be able to?"
After some consideration, Alyssa said, "Probably not. Get me my laptop?"
Quentin got up and made pre-bed arrangements - rinsing the dishes, getting Alyssa her laptop, putting on pajamas. He got into bed, turned his back to Alyssa so the glare from her laptop screen won't bother him, and fell asleep almost immediately.
A text notification greeted Quentin the following morning. He blinked at his phone, bleary, while at his side Alyssa gently snored.
It was from Delilah. I had a good time yesterday. Hope you got home okay. I was a little worried since you left very suddenly -- was everything alright?
yeah of course, Quentin typed, feeling like a complete jackass. you were great. had a great time. just needed to go home. He hit send before he could talk himself out of it.
His phone chimed during his drive to work. When he arrived, he saw a reply from Delilah. I'm glad to hear that. Will you be interested in hearing the recorded version of the melody? I should have a preliminary version next week.
that sounds fantastic. Quentin let out a relieved sigh and took the stairs to work two at a time.
Delilah suggested they meet at a coffee shop Quentin had vaguely heard of. Their menu was written on the wall in chalk and all the baristas had at least one piercing. It was fairly quiet, despite the flyers advertising live music.
She was waiting for him when he got there, which gave him a brief moment of panic as he sat down. "Am I late?"
She smiled. "No, I'm early. Do you know what you want?"
He ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream; she had some kind of complicated herbal tea.
After the barista took their orders, Quentin swallowed and said, "I feel like I owe you an explanation."
Delilah's eyes were dark and steady, watching him. "You don't owe me anything," she said. "If there's something you want to tell me, I'm listening, but you absolutely don't have to."
Quentin jerked his gaze down and consciously slowed his breathing. She was just being kind. People did that. No reason to get all worked up.
That she was kind made speaking harder, and more necessary. "I didn't consider that we might do sexy stuff. I don't think I'm in the market for that right now."
Delilah leaned her chin on her fist, thoughtful. "If you're telling me that to spare my feelings, that's not necessary but okay. If you mean it, I might be able to hook you up with someone."
Hope blossomed in Quentin's belly. "Yeah?"
"Yep. Want to listen to the melody first?" At Quentin's nod, she put her phone on the table and offered him the headphones.
The melody in the recording sounded weirdly flat compared to the one they'd played together, probably because it sounded like there was only one instrument - a piano? - playing. It didn't sound entirely like the original melody, although Quentin couldn't remember it well enough to compare. "Why didn't you record the music while we were playing it?" he wondered aloud. She hadn't minded him asking ignorant questions before.
Delilah tilted her head. "You know how persistence works?" She paused. "Or, I mean. Know what the general idea of it is? Since nobody knows how it actually works." Quentin shook his head. "Basically the effects of magic only last as long as power is actively channelled, which is why it's rare for a spell to last more than, say, a few hours. Anything done with magic is like holding up a rock in the air - if you let it go, it's going to fall.
"The tune we made only existed while we were channeling power. If I'd recorded it, the recording would've been wiped when the spell ended."
"But writing down the notes worked?"
"Like I said, nobody knows exactly how it works. Some people forget information they find out by magic the second the spell is over. Most people can write down or draw the information, and retain at least a little bit. Some people can do more. It's very trial and error."
Quentin digested that. "That might explain why nobody's using magic to pursue immortality. Or like, nuclear launch codes."
Delilah laughed. "Oh Gods, that would be awful. No, if you're going after information that exists inside someone's head, specifically, you have to be in the same room with them for the spell to work. Usually in physical contact. There's the types who think they can use magic to take over the world, yeah, but usually they just get frustrated and leave. The people who stick around are ones who treat it as art, or as a form of spirituality, or as a neat prelude for sex. Or all of the above, like I do."
Quentin's drink was getting cold. He spooned up some of the whipped cream as he considered. "But you said you know someone who's not into the sexual aspect?"
"Give me your phone," Delilah said, and reached out her hand. Quentin unlocked it and gave it to her. "Here. His name's Henry -- you know him?" she said, when Quentin straightened slightly.
"Maybe. There was a guy named Henry at the mixer."
"Oh, yeah, I remember. He demonstrated levitation. He's a good guy. Upfront about what he's after. Very good magic user, too." Delilah punched in the number and handed Quentin's phone back to him. "Tell him I sent you... or would you rather I sent an introductory text, first?"
"Would you mind?" Quentin said, grateful.
"It's no problem." She took her phone and thumb-typed rapidly. "There you go, now he has your number. It will probably take him a day or two to get back to you, feel free to call him before that if you'd like."
She insisted on paying for his drink, too. Quentin didn't argue with her. He wasn't much for arguing in general, and one of the reasons he'd asked Delilah to do magic with him was this feeling she gave him, like if he went along and did as he was told everything would be all right.
Here's hoping that feeling won't blow up in his face.
For the next two days, Quentin kept getting his phone out, staring at it, and doing nothing. He should call Henry. He knew that. But phone calls were unnerving enough at the best of times, and those two days were not great.
It was far from the first time that Alyssa had a bad patch during her and Quentin's acquaintance. Usually, though, she had her bad days spaced out, not four in a row and three in the week before. Quentin was worried enough that when Henry did message him, he considered asking for a rain check.
Of course, Alyssa saw that he got a message. Once she got out of Quentin that he was invited on another magic-working opportunity, she was adamant. "I don't need you here holding my hand. If you don't want to go, of course you don't have to, but I really wouldn't want you to stay for my sake."
Quentin didn't very much like the idea of leaving Alyssa alone while she couldn't get out of bed, but she shooed him away. "Worst case, I'll call my brother. Go meet this guy. Have a good time."
So Quentin went, but he wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind for meeting a new person, which this Henry guy picked up on in no time flat.
"If you're not comfortable," Henry began. They were sitting on a park bench, trees green and shiny-leaved above them. "Of course we don't have to do anything--"
Against his will, Quentin blushed. "Sorry. I do want... yeah. It's just, my queerplatonic partner isn't having a great week and I'm worried about her."
"Your--" Henry blinked. "I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that term. What kind of partner?"
"Oh, Jeez." Quentin ran a hand through his hair. "Um. It's weird to explain -- we live together, we love each other, it's not exactly romantic. We're relationship anarchists anyway -- we're not exclusive on anything and we don't necessarily need relationships to fit neat labels. Basically she's my life partner."
"I see." Henry spoke slowly, making Quentin suspicious he didn't quite understand what Quentin was talking about. That was okay. Honestly, Quentin barely understood what he was talking about himself: Alyssa was the one who understood all the complicated concepts. "Well, that's certainly distracting. Is there anything you need that I can aid with?"
Quentin blushed harder. "That's really kind of you. No, there's probably nothing either of us can do. Thanks for offering, though, I appreciate it. The best thing I could do is get my mind off it and spend a few hours doing something that recharges me, so I can be in good shape when she needs something from me."
Henry took his glasses off to clean them. They were sturdy things, with a black plastic frame. He used specific cloth for cleaning glasses, not his shirt like most people Quentin knew. "Magic does that for you? Recharges you?"
"Um." Quentin wasn't sure that was it. "It's... it's something important to me," he says slowly. "It fills up something in me. It can also tire me out, but that hasn't happened yet." Not since Sabine. "Not recently," he amends.
"Hm. What kind of workings have you done lately? Do you remember what it was that tired you out?" Whatever expression took hold of Quentin's face, it was enough to make Henry startle and say, "Of course, only if you're comfortable telling me."
Quentin waved it off. This information that Henry needed for both their safeties. "Recently, the last thing I did was... extracting a dream melody, I think she called it."
"Who did? Delilah?" Henry asked. After Quentin said yes, Henry asked details: how long did the spell last, how long was the tune itself, how many instruments played. With every detail Quentin added, Henry's brow furrowed.
Finally, curiosity got the better of Quentin. "Why are you looking like that?"
"I can't help my face," Henry said archly. Then he grimaced. "No, I apologize, that was rude. I'm simply confused. I know Delilah, and it's unlike her to push a newcomer to our community so far." He adds, "I remember seeing you sit with Gail at the mixer; she seemed to be taking you under her wing. Am I mistaken?" Quentin shook his head. "Right. And you say you didn't find this tiring?"
"Maybe just standing for that long," Quentin said. "Everything else was fine."
For a few moments, the only sound is the birds chirping in the branches. "What about workings you did find tiring," Henry finally asked, "if you don't mind telling me?"
Quentin thought back. The really bad times were lost, the memories distorted with fatigue and pain. "Our air conditioner broke," he said, halting. "My ex kept saying it was too hot. She didn't tell me what she was doing, but I think she was trying to lower the temperature in the apartment."
"Oh dear," Henry said, faint. "What kind of spatial constraints did she put in place?"
"I don't remember? Like I said, my ex wasn't big on explaining to me what was going on." At Henry's expression, Quentin hastened to add, "I know she was bad news, okay? For a lot of reasons. I get it, she didn't take care to be safe." His mouth twisted. "Anyway, it didn't work."
Henry's face looked faraway, occupied. "Well, weather magic is notoriously unpredictable and difficult. We should count ourselves lucky nothing happened, there's no telling what she could have done to the local climate or to your well-being." He lay his hands flat on the tops of his thighs. "It seems like you have the range to carry out workings I'm interested in, but either way I always start small with new familiars. I would be very happy to work with you, if you were interested."
Quentin exhaled, startled. This felt oddly like a job interview going right. "Great. I-- that's great."
"One thing you should know," Henry said, "is that I use mainly Jewish symbolism in my magic work. I won't be missionary about it, and what your beliefs are is frankly no business of mine, but if that's something you're opposed to, we won't be able to work together."
It was Quentin's turn to blink. "Jewish symbolism? Like... those star things? Um, sorry," he said, "I don't mean any disrespect. I'm kind of agnostic myself." Which Henry had just said was none of his business, and presumably wasn't terribly interesting to him either.
"It's fine." Henry's smile was small but very potent. It made breathing easier. "Stars of David may feature, among other things, though they’re not the most likely. Is that an issue?"
"No issue." Quentin felt a little dazed. Henry was still aiming that smile at him. "I'm good."
"Excellent." Henry had very warm eyes, Quentin noticed. Deep brown, a solid, reassuring color. "In that case, we can go to my office and do a small working there? Just to check the fit, as it were."
Quentin must have made his agreement known, because in another moment they were walking to Henry's car.
"I thought we could do a very basic divining," Henry said. "Have you done any of those?" At Quentin's "No," he says, "It's one of the best usages of magic, if you ask me - one of the only areas where magic gets better results than doing things the mundane way. The melody extraction you did was a relative of what we'll do.
"Divining -- please stop me if I'm saying anything you know already -- is revealing any information that exists, or will exist, in the physical world. Things that are inside people's minds are more difficult -- you need the active participation of the person whose thoughts one is extracting. And then there's dream work..." Henry paused, cleared his throat, and said, "But I was talking about divining. The trick to divination is to be precise with one's wards and litanies. Ask too broad a question, and one risks overwhelming the familiar or getting very vague answers."
"Huh. So if I asked, say, what the weather would be tomorrow...."
"You'd want to specify exactly what you mean by 'weather' -- temperature? Precipitation? Humidity? Atmospheric pressure? And the physical area for which you wanted the answer, which is where spatial constraints come into play, and by 'tomorrow', since the full 24 hours would give much too much information to handle comfortably."
Sometimes being made uncomfortable was worth it. It could be good to be pushed almost to his limits.
But Henry wouldn't want to know about that. Quentin blushed. To cover it, he said, "What are you going to divine today?"
"We," Henry said, with mild pressure on the word, "are going to ask whether one of my study participants would experience significant side effects if given certain medication, and whether the treatment would be effective."
"Wow," Quentin said, weakly. "I wish my partner had that, she hates going on new meds because there's no knowing what it'll mess up."
"That can be discussed, in the future," Henry said.
The thought of Alyssa knowing in advance whether treatment would work was distracting enough that Quentin almost forgot to ask: "Wait, study participants? What do you do?"
"I'm a neurologist. Or, well," Henry coughed, "neuropharmacologist. Mainly in research, as I said. My main area is psychiatric drugs and the mechanisms by which they work."
Which could be either awesome or shitty, since Alyssa had all kinds of stories about ableist doctors and researchers. "And you use magic for your research?"
"I use it to indicate possible research venues. Of course I then have to prove and document my findings using the usual tools, but it tells me where to look."
Quentin tried to find a more fitting response than Cool, but before he could they arrived at the university. The gate opened for Henry's car, and he navigated it between the buildings. "Wow, I haven't been here since graduation," Quentin said.
"How long ago was that?" Henry sounded genuinely interested, not just courteous. But that was probably just Quentin's imagination.
"Uh... four and a half years, I think? Yeah, that's about that." Five years of living with Alyssa, and they had moved in together on the last semester of his previous degree.
In a slightly guarded tone, Henry said, "I realize I should have asked earlier, but how old are you?"
"Oh, I'm twenty-nine," Quentin said. "I started late and my degree, uh, took me a while. How old are you?" He asked the question without thinking much, it was just the obvious response.
"Thirty-five, though I've been told I look older," Henry said in a dry tone. He parked the car, but made no move to get out.
"You don't, really," Quentin said before his brain caught up with his mouth. "I mean -- maybe you sound a little older? You have, like, a vocabulary." Quentin cringed at himself. God, why couldn't he ever think before he said anything?
At least he made Henry laugh, a little bit, enough for his eyes to crinkle. "I may have spent more time with textbooks and stuffy old academics than I have with people my own age. It's taken a toll on me." He undid his seat belt and got out of the car, Quentin on his heels.
"There we go," Henry said, unlocking the office. "It's small and dusty, but it's mine." Quentin walked in.
The room was indeed small, and not just that but crowded. Bags, calendars and posters with various pharmaceutical companies' logos filled the place. If Quentin had imagined any sort of arcane research equipment, though, he would have been disappointed. The room only had a computer, some intimidating books on the shelves, and piles on piles of papers that showed heavy marker use.
Henry gestured him toward one of two chairs next to the desk. "This shouldn't take long, but you may as well make yourself comfortable. Would standing up work for you as a way to end the spell? It's my usual preference. You can see why I wouldn't bring candles in here."
Just the idea of candles next to all that paper made Quentin nervous. "Yeah, I see. Where do you want to, uh, draw the wards?"
Henry gave him an evaluating look. "I think your hands would do, especially if you rolled your sleeves back. You could rest them on the desk," Henry demonstrated.
Quentin undid his cuffs and shoved his sleeves back. Henry winced, and Quentin gave him a sheepish look. "Sorry, they get all bunched up no matter how careful I try to be."
Henry seemed about to say something, but pursed his mouth instead. Then he said, "All right. You'll excuse me while I prepare, I hope?" Quentin gave him a go ahead gesture.
Henry bowed his head. He began to speak in a language Quentin didn’t know: Hebrew, presumably. He spoke quietly, but in the silence of the tiny office it would have been hard not to hear him. Henry’s concentration, his intent, felt like it was filling up all available space.
The recitation stopped, and Henry approached Quentin, who had his hands on the desk as instructed. Henry uncapped his pen, and Quentin shivered in anticipation. It felt good; he'd always liked the sensation of pen on skin, the knowledge of being worked on.
"Are you ready to repeat after me?" Henry asked. Quentin nodded. "Good. Repeat: I wish for the strength to do good," he paused to let Quentin repeat, "I ask for knowledge, if it is permitted...."
It was both like and subtly unlike the other litanies Quentin had heard, or said. There were no explicit references to God or whatever, for which Quentin was grateful. Asking a deity he didn't believe in for favors would be uncomfortable. At the same time, Henry avoided the "I draw down the power" language that was ubiquitous in other litanies he'd heard.
"...for the participant Sheila, daughter of Andrea and Jessica, a student of this university," Henry paused to let Quentin repeat, "let this coin show truth. Heads for yes, tails for no."
If asked, Quentin couldn't say what he'd have expected the divination to be like. Being given a coin, even as he felt power course through him, wasn't exactly it.
"I will ask a question," Henry said, "and you will flip the coin. All right?" Quentin nodded. "Excellent. If given the experimental substance, would the participant find sleep more refreshing? Toss, please."
Quentin did. Heads. It came down heads, too, when Quentin asked, "Will the participant fall asleep more easily if given the substance?" The questions continued in this vein. Every so often, the coin would land tails, and Henry would frown and write something down.
"And done," Henry said. Quentin sagged into the chair as the power left him. "Are you all right?"
"Fine." He hesitated, and admitted, "Maybe a little tired. In a good way, though, like after a workout."
Henry grimaced. "I think I understand Delilah a little better now. It's very easy to push you further. Which doesn't justify me doing so, of course; I'm very sorry, and if you won't want to work with me again, I understand."
Quentin straightened in his chair. "Hey, whoa, no. I said I was good, didn't I? I'd love to work with you again." He ducked his head after speaking. God, why did Quentin have to be such an embarrassment to himself?
"I'm glad," Henry said, and the resulting warmth that coursed through Quentin's bones had only a little to do with magic. "I would like that as well. Perhaps something a little more challenging, if you didn't mind?"
"I do not mind at all," Quentin said, with more emphasis than was warranted. But Henry was smiling at him again, and he wanted Henry to keep doing that.
"Wonderful. In the meanwhile, I prefer to have familiars stay close for a little while after we do a working, in case of any after effects. Would you mind?"
"Nope. I'll just text my partner my ETA." He pulled out his phone.
On the screen he saw a message from Alyssa, and opened it. Michelle had an unexpected night off, it said. going to her place. Love you! and a heart emoji.
"Oh," Quentin said, a tiny sound. It wasn't that he was jealous; he'd never gotten jealous over Alyssa and wasn't going to start now. He just felt so tired, all of a sudden, not just the warm glow of exertion but bleak exhaustion.
"Is something wrong?"
Quentin lifted his head to look at Henry. Even that felt like too much effort. "My partner's not home." He sounded plaintive to himself. No: whiny. Call it what it is. "Sorry. Nothing you should worry about."
Henry frowned. "And she-- I'm sorry, is your partner a she?" Quentin nodded. "She usually provides aftercare for magical sessions?"
"Oh," Quentin said again, slightly louder. He was such a dumbass. "Yeah, she does. I didn't realize that's what was happening."
Henry steepled his fingers. Slowly, he said, "I'm sure I'm no substitute for her, but is there anything I can do to help?"
"You did great. I'm fine." Quentin's tongue felt thick in his mouth.
"Whatever you are," Henry said, eyebrows raised, "fine is not it. What is it that you need? I could arrange food and a blanket." He grimaced again. "For certain values of food and blanket, I suppose."
"Yeah. Those are good." Quentin then watched as Henry dug in his bag and pulled out a thin fleece blanket and a packet of peanuts.
"If you're not allergic?" Henry said. Quentin shook his head. Henry held out the packet, and Quentin took it.
To Quentin's surprise, and guilty enjoyment, Henry laid the blanket over Quentin's shoulders himself. His hands brushed Quentin's neck, brief and impersonal. Henry then retreated to his computer, typing up a storm.
Quentin sat huddled in the blanket. He ate his peanuts. His eyes fixed on the spot on the floor right next to Henry's chair, where a reasonably sized grown man might sit.